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IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

Actually, it's a little earlier than that, but only by a few hours. Dave had a late Blazer broadcast on Thursday night, and wouldn't have been able to post this until at least Friday afternoon, so I opted for the early post.

I didn't get a chance to write about last Friday taking care of our youngest granddaughter, Jordyn. She is almost four and we decided to take her up to the old OMSI building at the zoo which they have now turned into a children's museum. We hadn't done anything exciting with her all week so we decided that this would be a real treat for her. We left late in the morning and arrived along with everyone else. And I mean "everyone else"! We were told that they had broken the record of attendance at that museum the day before with over 2,000 and were expecting at least that many and maybe even more that day. We have never seen so many kids running around with their parents but it wasn't long before Jordyn felt right at home. She enjoyed herself very much taking in the Lego castle and dragon exhibit, the theater and her favorite of all, the water works. She would have spent all day splashing around in the water if we hadn't kept her moving! After the museum, we stopped at Burger King and had lunch. I don't know who was worn out more; us or Jordyn but she slept all the way back home!

While we were out and about, we stopped to visit with Dan McLean at his store and while we were there, his son John (our god-son) and wife Tori arrived too. Tori is very pregnant and had just been to the doctor who promised her that she would be giving birth soon, maybe even later that day. That was on Friday. We checked again on Wednesday - 5 days later - and still no baby! I know that she was very uncomfortable last week and was ready to get this pregnancy over with. Since we were in the neighborhood, we stopped off at the Columbia River Pilot office to pick up some 2012 tide books. Since Dave's dad was a pilot, they're still good about giving them to him. He tries to get a dozen or so to give to friends who have boats. The books are really nice and are very accurate for our area.

We left for the coast later that day as there was a window between storms and we were anxious to get home. We got back home around 6:00 that evening after stopping for a bite to eat on the way. There had been quite a wind storm while we were gone so the next day, I took a tour around the yard and picked up a large arm full of twigs and branches that had been blown down from the wind. It was a waste of time as this week another storm hit and now I get to do it all over again!

We surprised ourselves by being up until midnight to bring in the New Year. We were invited down to Kahrs' for the celebration and ended up staying longer than we thought we would. All of us are used to being in bed on New Year's at least by 11:00 p.m. but it was after 1:00 a.m. this time. It was fun to celebrate with friends. At the first of this week, I got all my Christmas decorations down and put away for another year. The outdoor lights are still up and if the weather doesn't improve, they may just stay up until next year. Now that the holiday stuff is put away, it is time to purge my files and get ready to collect stuff for taxes.

I am really enjoying my Kindle that I got from Dave. So far, I am on my fourth book, I've seen a couple of videos and played lots of games. I am noticing that it is using up a lot of my time which isn't a bad thing since I can't get outside in the yard anyway. I do manage to keep up with housework and preparing meals so that isn't too bad. With the winters being so long and depressing, it gives me something new to do.

Speaking of new electronic gadgets, Dave is getting used to his new smart phone and likes it very much. He even took a "self portrait" while he was working on the Kubota the other day. I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but he took the tractor down to Des' a couple of weeks ago to dig a hole to help build a fence. Just as he got there, the thing lost a fan belt and so he had to park it instead. One thing has led to another and the result is that after two weeks, the Kubota is still parked in one of Kahrs' unused rental units. First Dave couldn't find a new fan belt, and then once he did get one, discovered he had to dismantle half the tractor to install it. One tractor part was so rusty that he had to cut it off to get it apart and wound up having to buy a new (expensive) replacement at the heavy equipment store in Portland while we were in there last week. Then he found that the reason the fan belt broke was because of a frozen pulley and so now he's back in Portland, trying to find a new bearing for the pulley. Hopefully, after all that grief, he can get the thing back together and working again! I'm sure Des would like to get his rental space vacated again.

This week, we are being entertained by two hummingbirds that have decided to "winter over" down here. They are so tiny and it is amazing how they can flip around so fast. I have a feeder set up just for them and to watch them attack each other for the food is so fun. They are very territorial and they have even buzzed Dave and me if we get near the feeder. I was adding more food the other day and while I was trying to hang the feeder back up, one of the birds was trying to drink from it while it was still in my hand!

I volunteered to be a mentor for the new class of Master Gardeners coming up in a week and so I have to run into the extension office and learn my job. I haven't learned to say "no" yet to any of their requests, so it looks like I will be involved with the group more than I had planned. As I said, Dave has a Blazer broadcast Thursday night, so he will be leaving for town to do that and will spend the night in West Linn with our daughter and her family.